Homemade Peanut Butter Hot Fudge

I was unleashing my neverending-winter aggression on the contents of my freezer, throwing things left and right, and hunting – seriously hunting – for the container of ice cream that I knew just had to be in there. But when I found it instead of being happy and just grabbing a spoon I sat for a moment trying to figure out what to put on it. We have a lot of food in our house but nothing that I would just dump on top of ice cream.

I ransacked the pantry only to find one of my favorite mix-ins of all time: peanut butter. Life-giving peanut butter. Silky creamy peanut butter. Peanut butter.

Then I did what any rational ice-cream craving woman would do: I took my favorite homemade hot fudge recipe and tweaked it to meet my needs. A little of this and a little of that later I had a creamy topping for my ice cream and then had to learn a little bit about self-control to not eat the rest of the batch. Heaven!

2 cups milk (original recipe calls for 1 cup but the peanut butter thickens this so much that you need more liquid)

1 cup peanut butter

1 Tbsp vanilla

pinch of salt

1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Whisk together the cocoa, sugar, and milk in a saucepan over medium low heat. Once it starts to warm up add the peanut butter and whisk it into the mixture. Add the vanilla and salt and bring mixture to a simmer, whisking constantly. Let it reduce down a bit until it’s at your desired consistency for ice cream topping. Remove from heat and whisk in the chocolate chips until melted (if using). Serve over ice cream and enjoy!

I hear you on the never ending winter. At least that means bathing suit season isn’t here, right? This looks like a delicious way to top off a bowl of ice cream. Peanut butter with chocolate is sooo good.